Food Production

Feeding the world is acknowledged as the biggest challenge of the 21st century. Around 75% of the poor people are the world’s most hungry, live in rural remote areas of developing countries and they depend on agriculture and food production for self preservation.

Agricultural food production is critical in fighting poverty, increasing employment and learning opportunities, health services and regional economic growth. The CPRSX Climate Change Action Plan ™ addresses these concerns by training and supporting our JV Partners in producing more nutritious food, in higher quantities and for sale to export and local markets, with innovative land management and food production strategies and investment mechanisms. According to the World Food Programme[1], the world produces enough to feed the 7 billion people yet, one in eight people go to bed hungry each night for the following reasons:

Poverty trap

Poorer families cannot afford proper levels of nutritious food, with the consequence that they and their families are under nourished. This makes them weaker and less motivated to work, so they become trapped in a cycle of poverty, hunger and lack of motivation. They also find it harder to buy seeds and equipment and therefore they can’t produce nutritious crops nor escape the poverty cycle.

Climate and weather

Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and long periods of drought are on the increase with calamitous consequences. Climate change is causing crop damage and failed harvests due to extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes. According to the Earth Policy Institute, global warming is an important contributor to food scarcity, for every 1 degree centigrade rise in global temperature grain yields are reduced by 10%. Climate change damages fertile farmlands and causes soil erosion, soil salinization [2] and desertification together with increasing crop losses.

War and displacement

Across the globe, conflicts consistently disrupt farming and food production. Fighting forces millions of people to flee their homes, leading to hunger emergencies as the displaced find themselves without the means to feed themselves. The United Nations Refugee Agency latest figures[3] available show that the number of displaced refugees stood at 10.4 million refugees at the beginning of 2013, with a further 4.8 million registered refugees being looked after in some 60 camps in the Middle East. They live in either well-established camps or collective centres to makeshift shelters or they live in the open. Naturally, in 2016 these statistics are more serious.

There are numerous global conflicts and suffering in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, Liberia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, DR Congo, Sudan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Yemen, North Korea, Ukraine, Spratly Islands and Myanmar, all having the effect of displacing people. In war food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and wrecking local food markets. Fields are often mined and water wells contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their land. Ensuring that people have access to adequate nutrient-rich food and safe water is essential for protecting the safety, health and wellbeing of refugees and other populations of concern.

Unstable food prices

Roller-coaster food prices make it difficult if not impossible for the poorest to buy nutritious food. Price spikes cause shifts to cheaper, less-nutritious foods. In developing countries people spend as much as 70% and more of their income on food.

Food wastage

Around one third of all food produced (1.3 billion tons) is never consumed, it is wasted. This wastage represents missed opportunities to improve food security in a world where one in 8 is hungry. Producing wasted food also wastes natural resources, water, land, energy while adding a further 3.3 billion tonnes of emissions into the atmosphere. This starts the cycle again and food production suffers.

The CPRSX’s Climate Change Action Plan and its Protected Food Production plan, normalises production costs and together with long term harvest and yield forecastability, price volatility is eliminated. Forecastability also enhances the opportunity to reduce food wastage significantly.

[1] World Food Programme, 16 July 2014 <http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes>[2]Refers to land that has become too salty to support life. Ill-planned irrigation schemes have greatly exacerbated the problem[3] UNHCR, 18 July 2014, < http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c1d.html>